True or False
by Jen Hunt
Summary: Emma wakes up after her car crash in the Pilot, only to find that nobody remembers that they are storybook characters. David is back in a coma. Mary Margaret does not know Emma is her daughter. Could this new reality truly be Storybrooke? Or has Emma been thrust in the middle of yet another curse? Regina/Emma centric but in a friendly way. (On hiatus, WILL be continued…)
1. Prologue

**Summary: Emma wakes up after her car crash in the Pilot, only to find that nobody remembers that they are storybook characters. David is back in a coma. Mary Margaret does not know Emma is her daughter. Could this new reality truly be Storybrooke? Or has Emma been thrust in the middle of yet another** __ **curse?**

 **A/N: I was prompted to write this story by my mom, who, upon seeing Emma's crash in the Pilot, muttered the life-shattering phrase, "What if it's all just a dream?" She was referring to all of the magic that occurs and the idea that everyone is a character from a fantasy tale.**

 **God, I sure hope not. But this fanfiction is about what would happen if my mom were… gasp… actually** _ **right**_ **. Whoa.**

 **Anyway, enjoy! :D Leave me a comment telling me what you think!**

 **Note: Only events up to the Season 4 finale have occurred. None of Season 5 will be incorporated into this fic. Also, this story is not beta-d.**

 _Awooooooooooo!_

The smooth, rich sound of a wolf howling broke through the dense barrier surrounding Emma. She fluttered her eyes but did not open them.

A shooting pain suddenly blossomed in Emma's forehead, and she winced and pressed her face further into the object her head rested on. Emma didn't know why, but burrowing further into things had always brought her comfort in the past. With each shallow breath she took, another hammer slammed her skull. Emma gritted her teeth against the pain and shut her eyes as tightly as she could. She drew in more rapid, deep breaths, even though all this succeeded in doing was intensifying the knife Emma felt was digging into her brain. The pain was so awful that it sucked the energy from every corner of Emma's body. She couldn't stand up. She couldn't cry for help. All she could do was stay absolutely still and suffer in silence.

Slowly, sounds began to find their way into Emma's mind and slip through the crevasses of her overwhelming pain. They presented themselves to Emma so that she could gain an understanding, no matter how vague, of her surroundings.

The muted sound of rain on the roof and a light _clacking_ sound filled Emma's ears from the outside and, even though they were hardly loud, she felt the urge to throw her hands over her ears. The agony pulsing in her forehead was already too much to handle without having to process sounds as well.

Nonetheless, the realization painstakingly crept in that Emma was in her own bug, and she had crashed it yet again. She felt slightly guilty that she had put her poor yellow baby through so much over the past few years.

What truly worried Emma, though, was the fact that she had no recollection of crashing this time. The last thing she really remembered was thrusting the dagger into the Darkness, and feeling the soul-crushing pain that far beat out what she was experiencing now, as the Darkness ate away at the goodness inside of her.

After several minutes that felt to Emma like hours, she was able to salvage enough of her strength to pry open her eyes. Sluggishly, she lifted one eyelid to the world, and the other reluctantly followed suit. Between her eyelashes, everything was a blur of black and green. Emma tried squinting to merge some shapes together into a cohesive, comprehendible picture, but her exhaustion took over and forced her eyelids all the way shut again.

The pain in her head worsening, Emma tried opening her eyes once more. She knew this crash was probably serious and that she needed medical attention, pronto. The pain smashing into her skull made that fact crystal clear to her. But what do you do when the only body parts you can move, move on their own anyway?

Some shapes eventually came together, and Emma could make out the floor of her car. She noticed Henry's leather-bound storybook lying there, opened to a random page. She saw on the page the elaborately detailed drawing of a blond man – her father – with a red stain blossoming on his white shirt. He cradled a baby wrapped in a white, woven blanket with the name _Emma_ embroidered on it, and she thought back to how skeptical she'd been when Henry had told her Snow White and Prince Charming were her parents. Henry really, truly had possessed convincing evidence to back up his story, but Emma had been having none of it. She felt bad for making him think he was crazy simply because she couldn't accept the fact that her world was not the center of everything. How awful would it have been for her to believe in Henry's theory? At least she'd have parents she knew wouldn't leave her, then.

Emma flapped her right hand around randomly until she felt it hit something hard. She fumbled for the seatbelt release button and pressed it, head still resting uncomfortably against the steering wheel. There was one tiny step accomplished, which at this point felt monumental to Emma.

Emma moved her hand to her pocket and pulled out her phone. She lifted the device high enough so that she could see the screen without having to move her face. Her arm shook with the small effort. Emma had decided she would call Mary Margaret, and Mary Margaret could send over an ambulance. But when she scrolled through her contacts, well, that was weird…

None of the numbers of Storybrooke residents were in her phone.

Emma frowned, or so she thought, but she couldn't feel anything besides the pain that originated in her temple and ricocheted off into every other corner of her mind. It was kind of like how some people cut a vegetable in half before smashing it into a million tiny little chunks. Her brain was that vegetable.

Now Emma had another decision to make. Should she call 9-1-1, or should she try and haul her broken body over to the hospital herself? What had she even _hit?_

Emma, with great effort, turned her head and caught a glimpse of the broken Storybrooke sign. She couldn't resist rolling her eyes. _Of course._ Savior or not, the town still hadn't totally forgiven her for wrecking the sign the first time. "It's good news for our tourist business," Graham had said, referring to her decision to stay. "It's bad for the local signage."

So it was fairly unsurprising that it had been the sign Emma had hit.

Emma lifted her other hand, barely able to force her fingers into forming the claw-like shape necessary for opening the door. She dragged herself out of her seat and into the grass, used the broken sign to pull herself into a standing position, and staggered on down the road. She fell every few steps, but she was making slow and sure progress, which was reassuring. Having to focus on her steps also drew her attention away from the excruciating pain pounding at her skull, if only slightly.

Emma shivered unconsciously in the rain. The downpour was drenching her even through her jacket and chilling her to the bone, but she hardly even noticed she was cold as she was paying so much attention to the arduous task of placing one foot in front of the other.

After a long, difficult walk, Emma finally collapsed in front of the Storybrooke hospital and allowed the doctors and nurses to lift her onto a gurney and wheel her into the dry safety of the hospital.


	2. Doubts and Delusions

**Wow! Only one chapter and such a positive response already~ you guys are so great!**

 _After a long, difficult walk, Emma finally collapsed in front of the Storybrooke hospital and allowed the doctors and nurses to lift her onto a gurney and wheel her into the dry safety of the hospital._

Emma's feet rhythmically slapped the pavement as she made her way across town to her mother's apartment. She threw frequent glances back behind her shoulder, observing the town as she ran through it, though she wasn't sure why she needed to do this. There was something fundamentally different and wrong about the town; the inkling scratched at the back of her mind that something had changed, but it wasn't strong enough to be brought to Emma's full attention. It was like a gnat buzzing in her face, annoying, but not enough so to hunt down the flyswatter.

Each time her boot touched the pavement, it jolted her entire body and sent a fierce wave of heat through her brain, but she pressed on. Her breath came in sharp, painful gasps: she wasn't a runner, but she needed to tell Mary Margaret what she'd heard. She wasn't one to waste time, either, so she bit her lip and forced herself to run faster.

Park benches tempted her with their fixedness, their inability to move and promises of relaxation, but Emma wasn't one to give up once she'd started. She passed long seat after long seat, ignoring each one though a fire burned in her puffing lungs and acid seared the veins in her shaky legs. Thus, she was drenched in sweat by the time she arrived at the apartment and shaking uncontrollably from exhaustion. Emma was so exhausted that she had to lean against the wall and dip her head between her knees to fight off the darkness that came with fainting. She watched tiny droplets of sweat splatter the floor as she did so.

" _Anything new on the John Doe?"_

Emma's head snapped up as she remembered this statement, and she forced her hand to the door. Her wrist moved rapidly as she banged the solid wood. It made a resounding _THOD, THOD, THOD_ that echoed loudly down the halls, and Emma immediately regretted her decision to knock so insistently as the sound reverberated in her recently-injured head.

" _No, nothing new. He hasn't woken up, and no one's claimed him yet."_

Why would there be another John Doe at the hospital? Storybrooke was small; everyone was known by _someone._ Which meant they had an out-of-town guest.

Which meant they had a problem.

Emma knocked harder and faster, wishing now that she had been more forceful about her mother acquiring a doorbell. Mary Margaret's antique-y furniture and TV-less lifestyle were fine, but a doorbell was a _necessity_. Knocking, you could ignore indefinitely. Doorbells, they were loud and sharp and noisy and screamed at you rudely, forcing you to sashay yourself over to the door to greet your rather indignant guest.

Suddenly, the door swung open, and Emma found her fist nearly contacting her mother's face in her fervor.

Mary Margaret swerved just in time to avoid a, though entirely accidental, extremely painful bruise. Mary Margaret's eyebrows dipped slightly as she took in Emma's disheveled appearance: unbrushed hair, bruised arms, and a white bandage wrapped tightly around her head. "Hi, um, can I help you?" she said.

Emma pushed past her and plopped her sweat-soaked body into a kitchen chair. "I just learned something that I think you need to hear," she managed to huff out between breaths.

Mary Margaret pulled a gaudy chair up, next to Emma. "What is it?" she said.

Emma looked her dead in the eyes then, still breathing hard, and the obvious importance of what she was about to say scared Mary Margaret more than she wanted to admit.

" _There's another John Doe in Storybrooke,"_ Emma said with full severity.

Mary Margaret's stiff frame relaxed instantly, and she slumped in her chair. She blew her bangs out of her eyes. This girl had her thinking the town was on fire.

Emma furrowed her eyebrows at Mary Margaret's relaxedness; didn't her mother understand how big of a deal this could be? What this could mean for the future safety of Storybrooke?

"Don't you- don't you understand?" Emma said, grasping for words that would convey just how significant this actually was.

"Of course I understand," Mary Margaret replied, fiddling with the tablemat in front of her. "There are two John Does now. But there's nothing _I_ can do about it."

Emma blinked. "No!" she said, trying to make her mother understand, not getting why she couldn't. "There's a _fresh_ John Doe. A new one. Just _one._ Singular."

"There's always been a John Doe there; unless there are two, he's not new," Mary Margaret said honestly. Emma could decipher no lie hiding in this statement, which confused her immensely. Why wouldn't her mother remember her own _husband_ waking up from a coma? "I go and read to him sometimes; I've been doing it for a while," Mary Margaret added.

" _No!"_ Emma screamed suddenly, reverting back to the old defenses she had used as a child when no one would believe her when she said she didn't steal that, didn't break that, didn't draw on that.

Mary Margaret drew back at her outburst, looking alarmed. "David left! David left!" Emma reminded her angrily, watching her own fists curl themselves into tight balls. It had been a while since she'd been this infuriated. "Storybrooke hasn't had a John Doe in over four years, remember?"

Mary Margaret shook her head in disbelief at the woman in front of her. "Who's David? And why are you telling me all of this?"

Emma lifted her head to look at her mother, shocked. "David," she said, furrowing her eyebrows. "David Nolan. Your love. Prince Charming. My father. The man you made _me_ with."

Mary Margaret's mouth formed a silent _Oh._ She could see that this woman had recently incurred a head injury. This woman must be confused, so confused, and not thinking right. _That_ was why she'd come randomly knocking at her door. _That_ was why she was spewing out all of this information she thought it was imperative for Mary Margaret to know. _That_ was why this woman had entered her loft without invitation; she clearly thought she had some sort of connection to Mary Margaret.

Mary Margaret thought for a minute. She didn't want to set the woman off again. "So, that would make me your mother, right?" Mary Margaret said, inferring from Emma's previous sentence.

The girl sitting in front of her nodded, but she didn't look as confident about it anymore.

Mary Margaret offered the girl a sympathetic tilt of her head. "Oh, sweetie, I'm sorry, but I'm not your mother. Look at us, we're almost the same age," she laughed gently, as if she were telling a three-year-old something. "How could I be?"

Emma stared at her, her eyes opened wide like two incredibly green Frisbees, taking in the obvious evidence supporting this claim. She blinked once, her mouth agape and refusing to close.

"Let me ask you one thing," Emma, or whoever she was, said finally.

Emma was beginning to doubt even her own identity; she was so confused. Things had always been relatively black-and-white for her: either she was the abandoned orphan, or she wasn't. There was no in-between in her life; she had jumped straight from no family whatsoever to a bigger family than she knew what to do with.

Mary Margaret nodded politely. "Of course."

Emma drew in a deep breath. Her heart thudded in her chest, terrified of the answer she might receive. "Who exactly is Henry Mills, in relation to you?"

Mary Margaret cocked her head to the side, surprised at the question. "Henry Mills? He's my student."

Emma dropped her head into her hands, seeing she had a much larger problem to deal with now than John Doe.


	3. Circa 2011

**A/N: Wow! I never expected this story to have so much success; you guys are all AMAZING (but you didn't need me to tell you that…)!**

 _Mary Margaret cocked her head to the side, surprised at the question. "Henry Mills? He's my student."_

 _Emma dropped her head into her hands, seeing she had a much larger problem to deal with now than John Doe._

Storybrooke Maine.

Story _freaking_ brooke Maine. There was always something with this town, wasn't there? There was always some new problem arising before the previous one was resolved, one that Emma would inevitably have to deal with, whether she liked it or not.

Realizing she no longer had Mary Margaret's permission to reside in her roomy loft - being that Mary Margaret had not the slightest inkling of who Emma was – Emma had checked herself into a cramped room at Granny's Bed and Breakfast. Granny, as per usual, had been overly hospitable to Emma, had not refused her a room because of her Regina-caused "jail record," but had also shown no signs of recognition toward Emma. She had called Emma the unfamiliar title of "Miss," and then "Miss Swan" when she had finally looked down at the logbook and seen Emma's name scrawled on the yellowing paper.

Emma now stood in front of the sink in the communal bathroom. _Two people._ Two people she had known for over four years didn't recognize her! What the hell was happening? She felt like she had made a wish to be invisible, except being invisible would be better because than this she would, at the very least, have a weak explanation for why she felt so unknown, anonymous, unfamiliar.

Emma could feel her confidence crumbling like an abandoned sandcastle, left to dry out in the sun. God, was she really Emma Swan? She still had her curly blonde hair, her strong, powerful arms, and her foreboding expression, but none of that actually made her _her._ Wasn't your identity rooted in others to some extent, after all? Even if you were a loner, the fact was, that just meant that people didn't know you existed. Being a loner still required people: people not knowing you. So, if your identity suddenly changed, if people started or stopped knowing you, who _were_ you, truly?

Emma sat down on the edge of the claw-footed tub and dragged a shaky hand through her tangled hair. She ran through the events of the past couple days in her mind: first, she'd woken up from a car crash. She'd dragged her beaten body to the hospital. She'd been treated, held for a couple of days for examinations, then released with a mild concussionand warnings to be careful.

Immediately after her release, she'd sought out Mary Margaret, who'd rejected her as a familiar face.

After that, Emma had walked to Granny's Bed and Breakfast, rented a room with what she had remaining in her pocket, and that brought her to the present moment.

Emma sighed. Nothing that had happened to her in the past few days hinted even in the slightest at what was going on. Mary Margaret didn't know who David was, either. Shouldn't that mean something? No matter how hard she tried, Emma couldn't seem to make the puzzle pieces fit together.

Abandoning her attempts to understand her situation for the night, Emma turned on the faucet and splashed cold water in her face. She regretted it, though, because the shock of the icy liquid against her skin only reminded her that this all was real; this all was happening. Her own mother did not remember her. She dried her face with a threadbare towel Granny had loaned her and headed off to bed, sighing all the way down the hall.

* * *

Emma yawned, sloshing the coffee around in her half-full cup as she walked to Regina's. Her car had been towed after the accident, and she hadn't managed to salvage the money to free it from the towing company yet, so her current mode of transportation was by foot.

Surely, if no one else knew who Emma was, Henry would. Henry had brought her to this town in the first place; there could be no Princess Emma Swan-Blanchard-Nolan-Charming without him. That was why she was headed toward the Mills' sprawling mansion.

Surely enough, Emma was right: Henry still knew her.

So did Regina. Kinda.

Regina answered the door after Emma had allowed herself a few hesitant knocks.

"Miss Swan," Regina acknowledged. Her greeting was courtly and polite but held none of the friendly tone that Emma had taken four years to get out of her.

"Hi," Emma responded more than a little uncomfortably, digging her hands into the back pockets of her jeans. She glanced up at the brunette, then, noticing her shorter hair, awkwardly added, "You got a haircut. Looks nice."

Regina's hand instantly flew up to touch her hair, her stern expression unchanging. "Yes, I did get a haircut, but you've already seen it, Miss Swan."

"Guess I wasn't paying attention," Emma said to the ground. "Is Henry-"

Before she could finish her sentence, a figure came bounding past Regina and launched itself into Emma. Two arms squeezed Emma's waist so tightly that she suddenly found herself lacking oxygen.

Emma removed the arms from around her waist, and the figure immediately started babbling as soon as she got a chance to look into his face.

"I knew you'd stay; I knew it!" it said. "Mom sent you home, but I knew you wouldn't give up on me!"

Emma blinked twice. She rubbed her eyes. She blinked again. None of her methods altered what she was seeing standing directly in front of her. She held up a hand for the figure to stop talking, and it complied. She needed time to process this.

"Kid, you look so… young," Emma finally managed after a full minute had passed, tripping slightly over her words in her amazement.

Henry shrugged at this. "I'm ten. I always look young."

"Hold on," Emma said, shocked, almost before Henry had finished his statement. "Hold on," she repeated numbly. "Say that again, please?"

Henry frowned at her, furrowing his brows and dipping his head just like Emma did whenever she was confused. "Umm… I'm ten? And I'm young and cute?"

"What year is it?" Emma asked slowly, a sudden realization creeping over her.

"Umm, two-thousand and eleven?" Henry bounced impatiently on the balls of his feet. "Why?"

Emma, her mouth slightly agape, glanced at Regina. "Can I have a moment alone with Henry?" she asked.

"Sure, why not. Maybe it'll get you out of his system." Regina turned and slammed the door behind her, clearly upset that Emma was back.

Emma breathed a sigh that was simultaneously a sigh of relief and of worry. On the bright side, she had managed to find two people who were aware of her identity, though not the full extent of it. Considering the way things were going for her so far, though, two people seemed to be a fairly decent number, definitely nothing to sneeze at. However, on the very, very dark side, Emma was pretty sure she had been sent back to the beginning somehow, to when she had first arrived in Storybrooke, the idea of which would be a massive problem in and of itself.

What made her problem grow exponentially larger, though, was that Emma wasn't sure there would be a curse that she could just break this time. There seemed to be nothing that instantaneous to remedy her situation, to make everything better again at the snap of the fingers (or at the kiss of a forehead). Emma was almost entirely confident that what she was living in was a cold, hard, magicless…

…reality.


	4. Reality is Really Real

**A/N: OMG! I am having so much fun writing this; I hope you are enjoying reading it as much as I enjoy writing!**

 _Emma breathed a sigh that was simultaneously a sigh of relief and of worry. On the bright side, she had managed to find two people who were aware of her identity, though not the full extent of it. Considering the way things were going for her so far, though, two people seemed to be a fairly decent number, definitely nothing to sneeze at. However, on the very, very dark side, Emma was pretty sure she had been sent back to the beginning somehow, to when she had first arrived in Storybrooke, the idea of which would be a massive problem in and of itself._

 _What made her problem grow exponentially larger, though, was that Emma wasn't sure there would be a curse that she could just break this time. There seemed to be nothing that instantaneous to remedy her situation, to make everything better again at the snap of the fingers (or at the kiss of a forehead). Emma was almost entirely confident that what she was living in was a cold, hard, magicless…_

… _reality._

Emma drew in a deep breath, taking in the warm, smooth scent of her hot chocolate spiced with cinnamon, the one constant in her life of change.

"So, we broke the curse?" asked Henry next to her, slurping down the last of his own hot chocolate. "How'd we do it? What'd Mom do about it?"

Emma nodded, still finding it hard to believe that her fifteen-year-old son had reverted back into a ten-year-old, practically in front of her eyes. "Yeah. I, um." Emma paused, glancing down at the familiar countertops of Granny's diner. She was glad Regina had allowed them to walk here so she could talk to Henry completely alone. Even though she knew him, now that she had been cast back to whatever the hell _this,_ this _everything,_ was, he didn't know her. She felt awkward saying what she was about to say next.

"I kissed your forehead. You were in the hospital, and there was this big _whoosh,_ and then-"

She paused. Henry was looking at her from his green eyes, colored like hers but shaped like Neal's, with an admiring expression. His eyes crinkled into a smile.

"What?" she said defensively.

Henry smiled at her. "You _love_ me," he teased. "Or, _loved,_ I guess. In the future. You would love me, you will love me…"

"Kid, I…" But, before she could finish, Henry had wrapped his arms around her, and, taking in the deep, woodsy scent of his shampoo, she couldn't say she hadn't needed that. He pulled back after a moment, though, his childlike (or child _ish,_ rather) curiosity quickly moving his mind to another subject.

"What did my mom do when we broke the curse?"

"Well," Emma replied, shaking her head, " _I_ wasn't her favorite, for a while. But she changed. For you, Kid."

Emma felt the sudden urge to reach over and stroke Henry's hair back from his face, to tuck him under one arm and place another kiss on his forehead, much like the one she had given him in the hospital. But she couldn't. She knew him, but, again, he barely knew her.

It was just so difficult.

"So, you just need to kiss me again. Right?" Henry said hopefully. "Then the curse will be broken."

Before Emma could answer, the bell on the door chimed, announcing a visitor. Emma turned in her seat to look just as Mary Margaret stepped in.

As her eyes swept the diner, Mary Margaret's eyes met Emma's. Emma quickly averted her gaze, but Mary Margaret kept hers fixed on Emma and made a determined beeline for the counter. She placed herself in the seat next to Emma and stuck out a hand.

"Mary Margaret," she said. "I think we got off on the wrong foot yesterday, and I'd like to start over."

Emma accepted the proffered hand and shook lightly. "Emma Swan," she said simply. She was already on thin ice with her "mother"; she didn't want the whole town thinking she was crazy.

Emma saw the way Mary Margaret tilted her head vaguely to the left at the mention of her name, her mouth opening into a slightly-curved smile, probably thinking, "I've been holding onto that name for a baby girl. What a coincidence."

And Emma felt suddenly alienated from herself as she realized she had no viable evidence to prove that she _was_ that daughter. That the name _had_ been used already. By her.

Henry, not possessing Emma's superpower for determining if someone was lying or not, was nonetheless still incredibly observant and picked up on this subtle thought of Mary Margaret's.

"Emma," he whispered, tugging on the sleeve of her red leather jacket. "Do you still have the book?"

"Only thing I could get from the towing company," Emma said truthfully, and reached into her messenger bag, full of three possessions she considered to be the most important: her white baby blanket, the key to her room at Granny's , and Henry's book. Only one of them actually belonged to her.

Emma lifted the leather-bound book from her bag and handed it to Henry, wondering if this time, the book would be even less convincing to her. Right at the moment, she was fairly sure that _this_ was all there was; there was no unbroken curse that made reality seem any less painful.

But, then again, she'd seen or possibly done all that she had. She'd broken the curse, traveled to Neverland and the Enchanted Forest, and turned herself into the Dark One. All that she'd learned around the people of the town, there was no way none of that was real.

Something fluttered to the floor as Henry accepted the book, a loose page from the story, and Emma scooped it up and placed it inside the front cover without once thinking that it might be important to her current situation.

Henry flipped through pages and landed on one that only had Snow White on it, pictured head-on, staring out through the book as if she were longing to be in Emma's world.

Emma couldn't understand why, though. She'd rather be in the book, where everyone knew who they were at every moment; no guesswork.

"That's you, Ms. Blanchard," Henry said, placing his index finger on the shiny book page.

Mary Margaret laughed shyly. "That's not me, Henry. I'm not special enough to be in any book. Besides, her hair is long, and mine is short, see?"

"I bet," Henry began, flipping pages once more, "I bet that you would name your daughter Emma if you had one, right?" Mary Margaret's mouth gaped slightly, but Henry plowed on before she could get a word in. "Well, look." Henry stopped at the page with baby Emma on it, wrapped securely in her white knit blanket. He grazed his thumb over Emma's name, embroidered into the edge of the blanket, indicating that Mary Margaret should pay attention. "That's Snow White's – your – daughter, named _Emma_."

"That doesn't mean anything," Mary Margaret said, almost obstinately, and Emma could see why Mary Margaret wasn't buying it, why even she herself was having trouble convincing herself the fairytales were real, even through she had _lived_ partially through it. After all, how could anything as crazily wonderful as the perfect life depicted in fairytales possibly hold true for someone living in reality? Reality was rude. Reality was harsh. Reality was _real._ Even when Emma thought she had her life secured into a place she was happy with, fate had torn that away from her and was now tempting her to find out why, how. It was forcing her to hold four years of her life up to the light and examine in objectively, to say, 'That's not real. Good things don't happen to people like me.'

"There are a lot of coincidences in life, we shouldn't get excited over all of them," Mary Margaret said.

"How about this?" Henry asked, sounding like the little detective he was. He tugged Emma's tattered baby blanket out of her relatively empty bag and handed it to his teacher.

Mary Margaret ran her fingers over the soft thread, feeling the fraying yarn tickle her fingers. It felt strangely familiar and strangely not. She glanced up at Emma, a surprised look on her face.

"I like hot chocolate with cinnamon," Emma offered weakly, a vague smile on her face.

"You could've just made this… knitted it and roughed it up a little…" she said, still rubbing the fabric between her hands.

"We didn't," Emma said quickly, rushing her words out. "Do I look like someone who knows how to knit?"

"No, but-" She cut off her sentence abruptly.

"I need to think about this," she said.

Suddenly, Emma had a thought. A thought that would allow both her _and_ Mary Margaret to find out what kind of a reality they were actually living in. "The John Doe at the hospital?" Emma began. "You read to him, right?"

Mary Margaret looked at her then, frowning. "Yeah, why?"

"Is he blond, muscular?"

"Yes…"

"Strong nose and perfectly sculpted lips?"

"Why?"

Emma could tell she was making Mary Margaret nervous again, and she knew she had to hurry it up.

Emma sighed and slid the book over to her. "This is all going to sound crazy, but I may have been through this all before. I don't know. I don't know what to believe anymore." Emma pushed the hair back from her face. "I feel like I don't know who I am anymore." She blew out a puff of air and let a long pause go by before she spoke again.. "I need you to do something for me. If it works, I'll tell you more. But" –she pressed a hand flat on the book and leaned in closer to Mary Margaret, so close that Mary Margaret could smell the cinnamon on Emma's breath – "first, I need you to read this to John Doe. Supposedly, you're Snow White, and he's Prince Charming. If that's true, he's going to grab your hand while you're reading, but he'll be completely motionless when you try and tell the doctors." Emma paused to lick her lips. "He's going to wake up and wander off eventually, to the toll bridge. He's looking for you, because, according to the book," she tapped the hard cover, "the troll bridge is where your story really begins. You need to be there before he is, or we're going to have serious problems."

Emma drew in a deep breath. Never in her life had she said so many words all at once, and she was worried what Mary Margaret would say. Even if Mary Margaret _wasn't_ her mother (this whole situation was making her less and less sure of herself), she was the closest thing Emma had to a mother figure in her life, and she didn't want to lose her.

Mary Margaret looked skeptical but compliant. "I'll do it," she said.

Emma bit her lip and nervously curled and uncurled her fingers, hoping her plan would work. It was all she had.

 **Comments? Questions? Criticisms? Critiques? I read everything, so don't be afraid to leave a review~ feedback helps! I will take your suggestions in stride!**


	5. A New Old Face

_Emma sighed and slid the book over to her. "This is all going to sound crazy, but I may have been through this all before. I don't know. I don't know what to believe anymore." Emma pushed the hair back from her face. "I feel like I don't know who I am anymore." She blew out a puff of air and let a long pause go by before she spoke again.. "I need you to do something for me. If it works, I'll tell you more. But" –she pressed a hand flat on the book and leaned in closer to Mary Margaret, so close that Mary Margaret could smell the cinnamon on Emma's breath – "first, I need you to read this to John Doe. Supposedly, you're Snow White, and he's Prince Charming. If that's true, he's going to grab your hand while you're reading, but he'll be completely motionless when you try and tell the doctors." Emma paused to lick her lips. "He's going to wake up and wander off eventually, to the toll bridge. He's looking for you, because, according to the book," she tapped the hard cover, "the troll bridge is where your story really begins. You need to be there before he is, or we're going to have serious problems."_

 _Emma drew in a deep breath. Never in her life had she said so many words all at once, and she was worried what Mary Margaret would say. Even if Mary Margaret wasn't her mother (this whole situation was making her less and less sure of herself), she was the closest thing Emma had to a mother figure in her life, and she didn't want to lose her._

 _Mary Margaret looked skeptical but compliant. "I'll do it," she said._

 _Emma bit her lip and nervously curled and uncurled her fingers, hoping her plan would work. It was all she had._

"Here you go," Granny said to Emma, smiling as she slid a lidded to-go cup of coffee across the counter at the blonde. Emma stopped the cup with an opened palm and wrapped her fingers around it, feeling the warmth seep pleasantly into her hand. She smiled lightly, stood up, and tucked her chair in under the bar. "Thanks, Granny. See you tomorrow."

Granny winked at her, obviously getting to "know" the blonde by then. "Always, Emma."

Emma pushed the door to the diner open, out into the darkening night, and turned a sharp right around the corner. Something firm and warm collided with her as she rounded the corner, and Emma took a few steps back to find out what she'd run into.

Emma gasped audibly. "Graham!"

She rushed into his arms and pressed herself tightly to his chest. Her heart thudded against her ribs, and she was sure Graham could feel it, too. He smelled so incredibly familiar, of forest from traversing the woods when there was no trouble in Storybrooke, and of worn leather from wearing his uniform day-in-day-out.

Emma dropped her coffee cup to the ground, steaming liquid spilling onto the uneven pavement and creeping slowly toward the curb. She stepped back and placed her hands against his cheeks, stroking the rough stubble growing there. Her eyebrows raised and moved inwards as she saw the familiar smooth skin and ocean blue eyes in front of her. She smiled widely and brightly at him, incredibly grateful for having something other than misery and disappointment in this still-cursed Storybrooke, her excitement barely contained within the parameters of acceptable conduct. "You're alive! You're alive!" she said loudly, jumping up and down, her fingers crossing the lengths of Graham's body to ensure that every part of him was real and solid and _not_ leaving her. She shook her head in happy disbelief; her mouth opened even wider in a shocked smile. "You're really here-" Emma took a step back from Graham, her hands crossed over her heart, a look of smooth bliss written on her face. "You're alive," she whispered at the ground.

Graham cleared his throat, snapping Emma out of her trance. She looked up into the man's eyes; the happiness evaporated from her expression.

Graham's expression toward her was neutral. Blank, even. He made no moves closer to her, and his hands were tucked deep into his coat pockets. His posture was rigid and formal, and Emma suddenly remembered where she actually was.

"Who are you?" Graham said, his eyes scanning her for something he recognized. "Do I know you?"

Emma felt her mouth moving, fumbling for sensible, coherent words as she caught the blank, clouded expression in Graham's eyes that was shared amongst all pre-broken-curse Storybrooke residents. He didn't know her. At all. In his mind, he'd never met her.

Emma spun on her heels, needing to be somewhere other than here. _Of course,_ Graham was alive. _Of course,_ he didn't remember her. The only proof Emma had of the past four years of her life was what was in her head.

"Wait!" Graham called after her. "Wait!"

Emma shut her eyes as she ran, erasing everything that was wrong with this town in her mind and replacing it with everything familiar: Robin waving kindly at her from across the street, walking hand-in-hand with Regina; Regina smiling at the ground and looking like, for once, something was going right in her life; David and Mary Margaret visible through the front window of Granny's, cooing at baby Neal; Belle dusting Rumple's shop. Emma navigated the town with the memories in her feet, rather than her eyesight. Behind her eyelids, everything was right. Behind her eyelids, there was only Killian. Behind her eyelids, Henry was a teenager again. Behind her eyelids, she had sacrificed herself to the darkness for Regina but still was loved and wanted nonetheless. From behind her eyelids came everything that was missing _here._

Underneath her feet, the ground became soft and mushy; Emma's boots sank and stuck in the ground. She opened her eyes to see where she'd come, and the toll bridge was lurking in front of her. She moved stealthily closer, praying under her breath that Mary Margaret had awoken David and that David was currently convincing her that they didn't belong here; they belonged in a world full of hope and magic and tiny, winged flying people.

Emma skidded to a stop when she saw what was actually happening in the stream. She involuntarily drew in a deep breath and plundered rapidly down the hill into the water. The cold liquid sopped into her boots and froze her toes. She thrust her hand down into the water, grabbed the arm she saw, and turned the body over.

"Oh!" Her hands flew to her face as she jumped back in surprise. David was there, laying in the cold, rushing water, his thin gown thoroughly soaked. Emma swept her gaze around the forest. No Mary Margaret. Had she played the David card too soon? Should she have given Mary Margaret more time to accept her theories?

Emma clutched her hands underneath David's armpits and dragged him out of the frigid water, his feet leaving dual trails in the mud. Emma leant down and dialed 9-1-1, the only trustworthy number she had at this point, after checking to make sure her father was still alive and breathing. As soon as the ambulance arrived, Emma moved away from the scene and made her way to Regina's. She had decided she needed a strong ally.

* * *

It was almost ten-thirty when Emma finally reached the Mills' mansion; the town may be small, but walking was a nonetheless a sluggish choice of transport.

Emma loudly rapped on the door three times using the brass knocker, not caring whether or not Regina and Henry were asleep. She listened closely through the door, and she could just make out the sound of angry footsteps coming down the stairs and toward the door. After a minute or so, the door flung open with surprising vigor.

Regina stood in front of her, rubbing her eyes, frustrated, dressed in dark silk pajamas. She crossed her arms and leaned on the heavy door. "What, Miss Swan."

Emma pushed past her, ignoring the fact that Regina's tone had been less than inviting. "We need to talk. Now."

Regina turned around. "Miss Swan, you can't just intrude and burst into other people's houses uninvited-"

Emma quickly spun and, with a few steps, was right in Regina's face. "I know everything," Emma said, her teeth gritted and her voice low and purposeful. She stepped forward, intruding even more on Regina's space. Regina took a half step backwards, intimidated. "Don't you play your games with me, because I know who you are, and no matter what you say, you can't fool me twice."

Regina appeared taken aback. "W-w," she stuttered as she fumbled for words. She frowned confusedly at Emma. "How about a glass of apple cider?" she tried.

Emma threw her a sideways glance. "No, thanks." She remembered that this woman was still the Evil Queen and a master of producing killer apple products. And not in the good way.

Regina blinked. "O-okay. Do you want to sit down, then? We can go upstairs into my office."

Emma accepted the invitation and followed Regina upstairs, settled herself on the black couch, and debated how to tell Regina what she knew.

Regina sighed. "What do you want to tell me, Miss Swan?"


	6. Life Sucks Sometimes

**A/N: Sorry for taking so long to update! I was debating how to do this next chapter, and every time I actually had some good inspiration for it, there was something else that needed to be finished instead! Anyway, I know I shouldn't say this because it's sort of like putting my work down, but I still don't think I got this quite right. The relationship between Emma and Regina in the beginning is extremely complex and difficult to capture.**

Emma sat in silence for a long while, studying Regina. Besides her shorter hair, there was nothing immediately different between past and present (present and future?) Reginas, but there was also something immensely different between them. Perhaps it was the hurt and pain burning deep, almost unrecognizably, in this Regina's eyes. Emma had never believed that Regina truly enjoyed hurting people; Regina simply enjoyed distracting herself from reality. Knowing other people are as miserable as you are is a nice respite from your own pain.

Emma couldn't blame her for being the Evil Queen.

Regina blinked back at her sleepily, taking no precautions to conceal the irritation written on her face and conveyed in her posture. Hurt in the past or not, Regina was not a force to be reckoned with. The brunette pursed her lips, and by the way she was swaying slowly to and fro in the doorway, Emma could tell that both Regina's patience and Regina's awake-ness were dwindling quickly.

"I know who you named Henry after," Emma blurted suddenly, not wanting to lose her window to talk.

The brunette gave the blonde such a large eye roll that it seemed to lurch her tired body backwards. Emma launched herself off the couch, reaching for Regina before she fell, but Regina had already braced herself against the doorway and masked the surprise on her face. Emma sat back down.

Regina turned her eyes to the blonde, malice mixed in with chocolate brown irises. "Miss Swan, the whole town knows this," she said, her upper lip lifted up in a very un-smug, very foul smirk.

Emma instinctively leaned back in her chair, away from the infuriated woman. Though they were only words of frustration, the Evil Queen's words slithered over her like a bitter, teasing breeze.

Emma ran her tongue over her teeth and tugged at a stray thread on the couch, trying to ignore the slight fear Regina had managed to ignite in her. "It was your father," Emma said gently, yet hurriedly, without looking up. "You had a choice to make, and you made it." Emma knew Regina would know what she was talking about.

Regina lowered herself onto the chair by the door, one arm still clutching the frame. Her face shifted from angry to _bruised,_ bruised and broken and pained and wounded in a way Emma had never seen before. Emma looked up, knees tucked underneath her, and could almost see the flashback that was playing behind Regina's eyes, the emotions flickering across Regina's face like a silent movie, and suddenly all Emma could feel was regret. She regretted dragging Regina into her own problems. She regretted making this woman feel more pain, regardless of how much Regina had inflicted on others. She regretted thinking that the still-evil queen could fix all her problems, when in reality she still had her own demons to deal with.

"He took a bullet for me," Regina said quietly, to no one, to the silence filling the room. "In a way, I'm only here because he's _not._ "

Emma still hadn't been able to figure out what sort of a reality she had entered into, so she was unsure whether Regina's statement was literal or figurative. However, before she could figure this out, Regina abruptly stood up, brushing nonexistent dust off of her silk pajamas. Her face was rigid once more.

"I think it's time for you to go, Miss Swan," she said.

Emma said nothing. She got to her feet silently and followed Regina down the staircase.

When Regina shut the door behind Emma, Emma looked up and noticed a little face disappearing from his upstairs bedroom window.


	7. Nighttime

**Author's Note: Sorry that it's been so long without a post! I feel really bad about that, and I just found this chapter a few days ago (I'd forgotten I'd started it). Anyway, I finished it up and tweaked it, and… here it is! Enjoy!**

 **P.S. I started chapter 8 the other day, too, so hopefully I can have that up soon.**

 _CRACK!_

Emma jolted straight up in bed, the frigid night air hitting her as the sheets gave up their cover and slipped off of her body. She listened to the thunder rolling across the sky and the rain hurling itself at the roof. How long had it been raining?

The sharp crack of thunder sounded again, and Emma's heart flip-flopped in her chest as furniture shook and glasses rattled at the force of the intense boom. The sound had struck something in her that had her rushing to throw her clothes on, sprinting down the stairs, and flinging the door open to the soaking, freezing rain.

As she hurried down the street, she noticed that the majority of the town was enduring the chilling rain along with her, and she began to realize that all of them – men, women, and children – were all headed in the same direction, panicked masses flowing past her. Never had she known this many people to be in Storybrooke.

Emma allowed herself to be corralled by the crowd, following the cascade of people down the street. They were walking awful fast, and as a result, Emma found her clumsy self bumping into people and being jostled by annoyed – yet, for some reason, concerned - looking strangers as she fought for space to walk in.

Emma skidded to a stop suddenly, droplets of rain flying up around her. The crowd had abruptly stopped moving, and a horde of townspeople was blocking her from continuing her path through the streets. Waves of whispers went up around the crowd – Emma heard several "What do we do?"s traveling around.

For some reason, it was oddly bright around where the crowd stood, despite it being the middle of the night _and_ the middle of an intense thunderstorm.

Emma wasn't sure where the crowd had brought her, nor did she know what all the ruckus was about, so she raised herself on her tiptoes to see if she could find out. She still couldn't see anything and was irritated that she'd let herself come all this way, now utterly drenched by the freezing rain, her ponytail hanging heavy and limp down her back, until…

 _Wait._

Emma's heart froze.

 _What was that?_

There had been a miraculous half-second break in the crowd's chatter, long enough for Emma to notice a low, continuous roar meeting her ears.

She pushed herself up further on her toes, enough until she could see, and her heart took off like a shot.

Suddenly, she was pushing her way through people, trying to make her way through the crowd of confused bystanders. She was finding out for herself exactly what happened when the unstoppable force met the immovable object – the unstoppable force had more reason not to be stopped than the immovable object had not to be moved, and barreled right past the immovable object.

Panicked tears welled up in Emma's eyes, spilling over her eyelids and blending with the downpour as she fought her way through the masses.

When Emma reached the front, the chatter had completely subsided, and onlookers were pointing bewilderedly at the blonde stranger who was making her way straight toward the blazing house of their town mayor.

The rain. Emma wondered how fires were possible in the rain. Water was supposed to be the one thing that won out against fire, right?

Emma reached for the doorknob.

If they couldn't rely on the one thing that could defeat fire, could Regina truly ever be good in this "new world"?

Emma pushed open the door.

After all, isn't beating fire a lot easier than beating yourself?


End file.
